The Woman in the Attic
by Royalty Over Reality
Summary: Kanae wakes up in a mysterious attic without any way to escape. At first, she tries to wait patiently for her prince to come and save her. However, as she starts to lose touch with reality, the way that she feels about both her fiancé and his younger sister begins to change. Has the path she must take already been prepared for her? (Rated T to be safe)
1. Wake

The wedding had been beautiful. Of course, Kanae wouldn't have expected anything else. At least, not since her fiancé - no, her husband's - younger sister had left Ohtori Academy. Just as she had always secretly assumed, once that strange girl disappeared, Akio had only had eyes for Kanae. Without Anthy around to encourage his childish habit of spending long nights in the planetarium, Akio had been the perfect partner.

He had thrown himself into wedding planning with a fervor that made all of Kanae's friends swoon. Kanae wanted a big fairytale wedding, like the kind that she had seen in the movies. So, Akio contacting florists and sampling different flavors of wedding cake for her. He had even started spending time alone with her mother to plan a big surprise that Kanae wasn't allowed to hear about until the wedding day. Not once did Kanae feel like she had to pressure Akio into doing any of these things. He seemed to genuinely care about making sure that Kanae had everything she wanted on their special day.

It was like something out of a dream, which became explicitly clear to Kanae when she opened her eyes. She was no longer standing under an archway made from snow white roses, looking into the eyes of the only man she'd ever truly loved. Instead, she was lying on a splintery wooden floor in a dark, dusty room. Her head was aching, as though she had drank too much the night before. That couldn't have been possible, though. She had never had more than a sip of wine from her mother's glass. Even stranger than that, the faint taste of apples was lingering in her mouth.

Kanae sat up and to get a better look at her surroundings. She moved quickly at first, but slowed down when she heard the way the floorboards creaked underneath her. She knew it that it was unlikely that they would break underneath her wait, but there was no harm in being too careful.

Her cautiousness was only amplified by the fact that Kanae had no idea where she was. There wasn't anywhere in Ohtori Academy that was this old. Had she been taken somewhere else?  
"Akio? Mother? Anyone?" She called out.

There was no one else in the room to hear her shouting, but she had assumed that the walls would have been thin enough for anyone outside to hear. The walls couldn't be much thicker than the floorboards, since the trapezoidal ceilings were made from the same unfinished wood. The size and the shape of the room made Kanae think that she was in some sort of attic.

The whole place reeked of mold and mildew. The only source of light was a small window that had been covered from the outside. Kanae was trying to think of any buildings on campus that might have had an attic like this, but all of the buildings in Ohtori Academy were far too beautiful to have an attic like this inside any of them. The campus might have been old, but her father and Akio made sure that it was immaculately well maintained.

Kanae was now sure that she had been taken somewhere else. But where? And by who? Certainly her family would come looking for her soon. Well, he wouldn't be able to come looking himself, on account of his illness. But he would surely send someone. A wealthy heiress like Kanae couldn't go missing without causing a serious uproar.

She would surely be on the news, and the police would come looking for her. They would find her in no time. As long as she got food and water she would be fine. She wasn't being tortured. Her captors hadn't even bothered tying her up. So, they probably had no intention of treating her poorly while she was in their care. They must have only been trying to make some money by holding Kanae for ransom. Surely they would let her go the second that her parents paid them.

Maybe the whole ordeal would even help her fiancé how much he really loved her. In a moment of bitterness, Kanae thought that she might be able to suffer through a few days alone in the attic if that was what it led to. It might not be that much worse than the alienation that she felt in her day to day life.

It would all be worth it in the end. After all, that's how it worked in all of the fairytales. If the princess waited patiently, if she kept a brave face on through all of her suffering, she would be rewarded with a happy ending.

Of course, that didn't mean that it would hurt to look for a way to escape. There had to be a way out. Kanae couldn't see a door anywhere, but that didn't mean that there wasn't one. There would have been no way for her captors to get her into the attic otherwise.

Kanae tried to stand up again, only to realize that the ceilings were too low for her to do that. She had to crawl around her hands and knees in order to try and find an exit. It was degrading, at least there was no one around to see her doing it. A few splinters in her knees were bothersome, but nothing in comparison to everything else that had happened since she woke up.

Kanae crawled around on the floor of the attic for a few times before realizing that there wasn't a door in sight. At first, she refused to believe it. It wasn't possible. And even if it was, what use would anyone have for an attic without a way to get in or out?

Kanae didn't know, but she hoped that she wouldn't be stuck in there long enough to find out.


	2. Shatter

Kanae knew that her only hope of escape was going to be the window. When she had tried to open it up, she was unsurprised to find that it had been bolted shut. Additionally, someone had covered it from the outside with a piece of blank canvas. So, she couldn't see outside of it, but Kanae was sure that if she was able to break through the window she could pull it off. She wouldn't be able to climb out because of the bars on the window, but she would have been able to cry for help. Even if nobody heard her, knowing where she was being held captive would make her feel at least a little bit better.

Kanae crawled over to the window and pressed both of her palms up against it. She threw her whole body weight into pushing up against the window, hoping that pressure alone would be enough to break through the glass. When that failed, she started pounding on the glass so hard that her hands began to hurt. The frame of the window was rumbling and she knew that it would shatter if she just hit harder.

Kanae reeled her arm back and smashed her fist through the window pane. She could feel shards of glass digging into her forearm. In spite of that, she still fiddled with the canvas, tugging at the edges in an attempt to rip it off. She was determined to get the job done, even if it meant forcing the chipped edges of the shattered windowpane deeper into the skin. It must have been nailed down, because she had to tug hard in order to get it off.

When she was finally able to tear it off, she pulled the canvas through the window pane and wrapped it around her arm like a bandage. She looked out through the unobstructed window and realized her earlier suspicions had been true. Climbing out the window definitely was not going to be an option for her. Even if it had been large enough for her to climb out of, she wouldn't have had anywhere safe to climb out to. It wasn't because she was a few floors too high to jump from. It was because the room that she was trapped in was suspended in space, floating amongst the constellations, disconnected from any sort of building.

It had to be a dream. After, all there was no gravity or air to breathe in outer space. She reached down to pinch herself, in hopes of waking herself up, only to realize that doing so would be redundant. It was only when her fingers made contact with bloody canvas that Kanae remembered that she had already injured herself. She had been so shocked by seeing where she was that she had completely forgotten about the pain she'd inflicted on herself only moments ago.

In spite of how terrifying the situation was, there was something beautiful about the night skies that surrounded her. The stars glittered like diamonds against a sky of dark, ebony velvet that almost shined violet in the moonlight. There was something hauntingly familiar about the array of cosmos. It looked identical to the images cast by the planetarium projector in the Chairman's office. Her fiancé had always loved it, but surely Kanae would've noticed if he had been building an attic in there.

Additionally, he didn't seem like the sort to do something like that. He was the type to rescue a girl from being locked in a tower, not the one to put her there in the first place. Besides, Akio would have undoubtedly come to save her when he had heard her calling if she was locked up in his office.

At least, that was what Kanae wanted to think. The more time that passed by, the more Kanae started to doubt things like that, things that she had once believed to be inarguably true. Being alone with one's thoughts in such an extraordinary situation could do that to a person.

At first, it being alone with herself hadn't been hard. Kanae had always had a miraculous talent for sitting there quietly with a smile on her face, trying her best not to think about anything. She had an outstanding talent for making it look she was listening, even when she was bored out of her mind. She had first tried doing it when listening to her parents' long dry lectures about how a young girl was supposed to act. As school got more difficult, she started to do it when her teachers droned on about bland and boring subjects. There was no need for her to struggle to get good grades when her father owned the school. She was his little princess, after all.

Eventually, she had started to use that skill with her friends as well. At first, she had tried to listen to every little problem that they had. When they came to her with trivial matters, she had usually found it interesting. When things were more serious, it was nice to know that she could lend a hand and help out her friends. But as she got older, the troubles that her friends had started to get more complicated. She couldn't help one friend without hurting another.

She stopped listening, and plastered that same radiant smile on her face that she did for the adults in her life. At first, she was worried her friends would notice and get angry with her for ignoring their problems. However, they never did. In fact, they seemed to like it more when she sat there, watching expectantly as they poured their hearts out. They seemed so much more appreciative than they ever had been when Kanae had genuinely tried to offer them advice.

So, eventually she had gotten to a point where there was nobody in her life that Kanae had wanted to listen to. It was easy, but dreadfully boring. And then she met him. Akio Ohtori. At the time, he had been using a different last name. However, had never thought it suited him. He had never seemed like a "Himemiya" to her. Akio Ohtori had such a lovely rhythm to it. Kanae had thought that ever since her father had first brought up their engagement. Or had it been her mother? Kanae couldn't remember, it felt like it had happened decades ago.

She doubted that she was going to get an answer to that question any time soon, but then she heard three knocks coming from the floorboard. With the third knock, a trap door materialized in the floorboards. Kanae started racing over towards it on her hands and knees. However, it was already open by the time that she got there.

Kanae looked down through the open door to see her own mother, standing on a ladder in the one of the familiar red carpeted hallways of the Chairman's tower.


	3. Phaedra

"Mother! Up here!" Kanae cried out.

"Oh, hello there, Kanae," her mother said.

There was something too casual, almost callous, about how her mother had greeted her. Akio certainly wouldn't have done that. He would have been relieved to have finally rescued her. But Kanae was in no situation to be picky about who came to save her.

"What's going on? How long have I been up here? Am I in the Chairman's tower?" Kanae asked.

"You shouldn't ask so many questions at once Kanae," her mother said.

Kanae couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her mother had never been nurturing, or even particularly kind. She'd taken to her role as the Chairman's wife with the pragmatism of a businesswoman, which included the way that she raised Kanae. Sometimes Kanae worried that her mother viewed her as an asset to be profited off of, instead of her daughter. But this was a new level of harshness.

"Am I in the Chairman's tower?" Kanae repeated.

She decided that the question needed to be answered the most urgently.

"Look around, where else could you be?" her mother asked.

It was true. Her mother was standing in one of the hallways outside of her fiancé's office. The stars and cosmos outside Kanae's window were probably just an illusion. One that it would be best not to tell her mother about.

"Is Akio around?" Kanae asked.

"Why do you ask?" her mother responded. "You don't honestly think he's coming to save you, do you?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Kanae asks.

Her mother laughed. A cold and knowing sound that made Kanae wonder if this person was even her mother at all. She looked like her, but her mother couldn't possibly treat her this monstrously.

And why would she doubt that Akio loved her? The two were so close, always spending time together, even when Kanae wasn't around. Surely, Akio didn't say bad things about her behind her back. A man like him would never do something so crooked and cowardly.

Of course, the two of them probably did spend an awful lot of time without her. Sometimes there were even moments when her mother's hands would linger far too long on her fiancé's arms. There were moments when she'd pull him into a hug when a simple handshake would have sufficed. Had she needed to kiss him on the cheek at Kanae's birthday party earlier that year? Akio had barely touched her once that night. What made her mother think that she had the right to do something so presumptuous?

"Mother," Kanae said. "If I ask you something, will you promise not to get angry with me, even if it seems rude?"

"I can't promise that," her mother said. "But now that you've brought it up, you might as well say it."

"Are you in love with my fiancé?"

Kanae was horrified as her mother's crimson lips twisted upwards into a sinister grin.

"Who wouldn't be?" she asked.

"What?" Kanae said.

She couldn't believe it. She had been harboring suspicions about her mother for a while, but she had never thought that her mother would have been cruel enough to admit it.

"_I saw him, I blushed, and I went pale at the sight of him_," her mother said. "When we shook hands, I felt like I had finally gotten hold of a long lost specter from the past, even though we had never met before. I know that it was only a few years ago, but at that moment, I felt like a much younger woman."

Kanae looked up at the ceiling, desperate to pull herself away from the conversation. There was something wrong with everything that was going on. It wasn't just the things her mother was saying that weren't right. Even the way that Kanae was processing them felt wrong. Those horrid words kept echoing in Kanae's mind, long after they had left her mother's lips, smeared with that garish scarlet paint.

"Perhaps, he made me think of a boy that I once knew. It was right around the time that I first met your father. He was just as weak-willed and easy to control back then as he is now."

"But you and father have always gotten along so well," Kanae said.

Her mother laughed. "Of course we have. I wouldn't have gotten us to where we are today, Kanae, if I hadn't gotten along with that man. But this was back before I was the Chairman's wife. I was just a girl who felt lucky enough to have two young men after her affections. Your father and I had all of the same classes together. We were best friends, but he was desperate to change that. I wouldn't have been surprised if he would have come to school one day with a sword and challenged the other young man to a duel. It was like something you would have read about in history class. But he always more like a little brother to me than anything else."

Kanae didn't understand why her mother was telling her this story, but she hoped that would become clear soon. Kanae was getting tired of receiving so many discordant pieces of information about her situation when she wasn't even looking for answers in the first place. All that she wanted was to get out of the attic.

"I don't care about some boy you met in high school!" Kanae said. "Just help me get down from here!"

"Oh, 'boy' was hardly the word for him. He always felt like a man to me, even though he couldn't have been more than a few years older than I was," her mother continued. "Mysterious and dangerous, but oh so charming. Was it cliché? Yes, of course, but I was just a teenage girl. You should know. You are right now, after all."

For some reason, that stung Kanae. Ever since her engagement, she had started to consider herself a young woman. What made Kanae's mother think that she could talk down to Kanae like she was still just a child?

If her mother had noticed that her barbed words had hurt Kanae, then she didn't show it.

"But he broke my heart. If I had been older, I'm sure that I would have expected it. Maybe, in a way, that pain was what aged me. That betrayal made me realize that I could never trust a man who had any sort of power over me. If I ever wanted to be truly happy, I would need to find someone that I could control."

"Daddy?"

"Yes, your father. We dated for a year or so. The relationship was easy, but passionless…on my part, at the very least. He proposed to me right before we graduated."

"Did you accept?"

"How could I not? His family was wealthy and he had always been kind to me. We're not that different, you know. I know that you think I'm some wretched old hag now, always telling you what to do. But we used to be the same, you and I. I had those same wide-eyed dreams of being a princess that you do. Well, marrying your father was the closest that I was ever going to get to obtaining that sort of power."

"Is that why dad picked out Akio for me? So I could have that too?"

"No, you ungrateful little bitch!"

Kanae shrank back from the trap door. She wasn't used to hearing words so harsh from her mother.

"Don't crawl back into your hole like some scared little mouse! You have everything I ever could have wanted. I married a man I didn't love so that you could live the life I always dreamed of having. You think that idiot could have picked out a man like Akio all on his own? He would have picked some donor's ineffectual son. Probably someone who reminded him of himself."

"Wait, it was you who picked out Akio?" Kanae asked. "But why?"

"Think about it, you silly little girl!" Her mother chided. "I can't believe my own daughter, the one that I've worked so hard for, could turn out to be such an ambitionless, whiny little brat."

"Mother!"

"Mother!" Kanae's mother repeated in a mocking tone.

It was becoming clear to Kanae that her mother was only here to torment her, not rescue her. This woman was treating her so cruelly that she was beginning to doubt whether or not this was her mother at all. She started trying to close the trap door subtly, but her mother noticed what she was doing. Before her mother could climb up, Kanae panicked and slammed the trap door shut.

Unfortunately, Kanae's mother wasn't giving up. First, she pounded on the trap door, screeching for Kanae to open it again. Kanae was tempted to sit down on top of the door, but this woman was her mother. Despite her suspicions, there was no legitimate reason for Kanae to believe that she wasn't. So, Kanae shrank back into the corner and watched as her mother crawled up into the attic.

It was a strange and concerning sight, seeing her mother slither across the dusty floorboards with her long black dress trailing behind her. It made her almost look like a slug, or maybe a snake. A parasite, or a predator? Kanae wasn't sure which one her mother had truly become.

"You can't just shut me out like that! This story isn't over yet, Kanae. You don't get to choose where it ends," her mother snarled. "Don't you want to know what happens to the woman in the story?"

Kanae shook her head back and forth. "No. No, I don't!"

"Over the years the young girl turns into a bitter middle-aged woman, trapped in an unfulfilling marriage. Her only source of excitement is a younger man who reminds her of the boy she once knew but forgot the name of long ago. This man seems to know her better than any lover she has ever been with, almost as though they've been together before. But that couldn't be possible…could it?"

"What are you talking about?" Kanae asks. "What do you mean? Is this some sort of metaphor? You have to be making this up!"

"You don't seriously think that you had the gravitational pull to make that star I pulled down from the cosmos revolve around you, do you?" The monster asked.

"Please, I don't understand what you're saying!" Kanae pleaded.

"Yes, you do, Kanae. We're all trapped in his orbit. Open that trap door one more time, see what you find. Better yet, try to climb through it. Look out through that broken window. Or better yet, look down at your arm. It's already healed."

Kanae did as she was told, even though she didn't trust her mother anymore. She just needed someone, anyone, to give her direction. The skin on her forearm had already closed up and there wasn't a bloodstain anywhere in sight. Kanae poked it, to test to if it was an illusion. Nothing about the way that Kanae's arm looked changed at all, but when she applied pressure to it, she could feel the shards of glass digging into her arm once more.

"Now look at my eyes," her mother commanded.

Kanae did as she was told once more, only to see that her mother's eyes were the same shade of green and the same shape as her own. Kanae and her mother had always had similar features, but these were perfect reduplications of what Kanae had seen in the mirror so many times before.

"You're not my mother," Kanae whispered.

"No, I'm not. Do you know who I am?"

"You're a monster!"

"Maybe I am. We have yet to find out."


	4. Princess

"You're not my mother," Kanae said.

This time, her voice was steady.

The woman with her mother's body, but eyes just like Kanae's, said nothing.

"You're not real," Kanae said. "I'm making you up."

The woman smiled and extended her hand towards Kanae. Kanae tried to back away, but she realized that her back was already pressed against the wall.

"Don't be afraid," the woman said. She reached out to stroke Kanae's cheek. "If I'm nothing more than a nightmare, how could I possibly hurt you?"

"I don't know," Kanae said.

The woman's hand felt warm, just like her mother's always had. But Kanae wouldn't let herself be fooled by that. She was already losing touch with reality. She couldn't let herself get attached to a figment of her own reality, just because it looked like someone that she knew.

"But I'm not going to let you," Kanae said.

"Don't worry, I don't want to hurt you," the woman said. "I came here to help you."

"Then why did you talk to me like that?" Kanae said.

"No one has ever treated you that cruelly before, have they?" the woman asked. "You poor thing."

Kanae didn't know why this woman's personality had changed so suddenly. Only a few moments ago, she had been tormenting Kanae. What made this woman think that she had any right to comfort her now?

"I don't want your pity," Kanae said. "I just want you to leave me alone."

"But don't see, Kanae?" the woman asked. "If you never suffer, you'll never discover who you really are."

She reached out, grabbed Kanae's hands, and pressed them together. Kanae almost screamed when she felt something starting to move in between her palms. She could feel the gentle fluttering of a butterfly's wings against her skin.

"What is this? What are you doing?" Kanae asked.

Instead of answering, the woman took her hands off of Kanae's and slunk backwards into the shadows.

"Wait! Mother, don't go!" Kanae shouted.

She opened up her hands and a butterfly flew it. It's dark blue wings, speckled black, glowed faintly in the darkened attic. The light made it clear that the woman was no longer in the attic with Kanae. She had disappeared without a trace. Kanae was alone again.

_Akio wouldn't have left me like that_, Kanae thought indignantly to herself. _And he certainly wouldn't have gone on talking about nonsense for so long, either._

He had been the first person worth listening to that Kanae had met in a long time. In a way, she had always known his interest in her wasn't completely innocent. He was an intelligent man. There was no doubt he had picked up on Kanae's position of privilege within Ohtori Academy. Kanae hadn't minded that, though. Every other boy she'd dated had been keenly aware of the fringe benefits of being in a relationship with her. Most of those boys, however, had been the sons of wealthy donors and benefactors. They came from the sort of families that her parents rubbed shoulders with regularly.

Kanae always assumed that she'd end up with a man like that. It had been pounded into her head since childhood when her mother would read her fairytales. The prince and the princess always fell in love in the end. It was meant to be. From an early age, there were many boys in Kanae's year she could have easily been "meant to be with." Akio, however, had never been one of them.

He had arrived like a whirlwind, some tropical storm from a far off coast that had somehow slipped under the radars of the nation's top meteorologists. Kanae couldn't even remember what his position at the school had been. It hadn't mattered. From the very beginning, he had the sort of confidence that could have gotten him any job in the school he wanted, just by asking for it, short of Kanae's father's.

So, from the very start, Akio must have known that Kanae was his ticket to the one thing that he wasn't able to have. She hadn't been bothered by the fact that he was using her. In fact, she had liked knowing that she had something that none of the other girls who were chasing after Akio did. There had been something almost magical about being introduced to a man who her father had hand-selected for her. A man who was already enamored with her before even learning her name.

At first, she had been expecting him to be bland and boring, in spite of all the wonderful things she had heard about him. In Kanae's personal experience, she had found that most good looking men didn't have to be particularly intelligent to succeed. Still, when she sat down and had her first conversation with Akio, Kanae was pleasantly surprised. She had been sure that he was only going to talk about how well he got along with her father and how excited he was to be joining the family.

That hadn't happened, though. While he had paid lip service to Kanae's father, he chose to focus almost entirely on Kanae. He asked about her likes, her dislikes, her thoughts on the engagement, and what she planned on doing with her future. It was all things that her father hadn't even taken into consideration when he had betrothed her to Akio in the first place.

When Kanae ran out of things to say, he started talking about his own passions, particularly his love for the stars. In spite of it being a topic Kanae knew little about, the way he explained it in poetic, yet still accessible, terms managed to hold her interest. While the conversation had started with both of them on opposite couches, it ended with the two of them snuggled up next to each other.

But conversations like that happened less frequently as their engagement got longer. Sometimes, it seemed like Akio had lost interest in Kanae the second she had started to take interest in him. She had tried to deny it, both to nosy friends and herself. It was hardest to deny when her mother asked her questions about the engagement, though.

Was that why she had dreamt up such a horrible conspiracy? Now, Kanae laughed to about the idea her fiancé could have been cheating on her with her own mother. There wasn't any reason to believe something like that. Her mother may have always gotten along so well with Akio. That didn't mean anything, though. She was just jealous because her mother seemed to connect with Akio on a level that Kanae had never been able to reach with him. Kanae could listen to every single one of his stories, but her mother could engage with them.

She had never lost that sharp-tongued wit that Kanae had never even bothered to learn. Kanae's mother had always told her that she should value her bright, youthful radiance. She had talked about it like it was some sort of glowing, brilliant magic with the power to ensnare men and keep them under a woman's command forever. It was a temporary, almost contractual magic though. The shining golden flame would one day burn out, leaving nothing but midnight black ash in its place.

At least, that was the story her mother had told. At least, she had told it with her words. Never her actions. Kanae saw the way her mother used her darker edges, her world-weary shrewdness, and her poisonous turns of phrase to get whatever she wanted. Sometimes she wondered if all that talk about the value of Kanae's youth was all just something that witch had made up to keep her naïve and stupid forever, so she would never be able to stand up to her. After all, Snow White would have never had so much trouble with the evil queen if she didn't act so sweetly all the time.

However, Kanae's anger wasn't powerful enough to get her to change the way she acted. She would be willing to take an entire lifetime of her mother needling her about not wasting the "best years of her life" by "going out and misbehaving." Kanae knew that she was right. There was value in being quiet and demure. There was something undeniably wonderful about being wanted, not for anything she'd done, but simply for what she was. If sitting there quietly, nodding her head, and smiling through her darkest suspicions was what that took; then she would do it until the day she died. Maybe even longer, if that was even possible.


	5. Decomposition

Kanae watched the butterfly flutter around the attic. Even after the surreal glow of its wings began to fade, it flew around like it could somehow see in the soft, violet tinted darkness. Kanae couldn't help but feel pity for the stupid little creature, trying so desperately to escape a room it had no hope of getting out of. It was probably best to put the poor thing out of its misery before it starved to death.

The butterfly escaped Kanae's grasp a few times before she was able to crush it in her hand. Once it was dead, Kanae's senses were overwhelmed with the smell of rotting flesh. Kanae closed her eyes, even though she knew it wouldn't do anything to stop the olfactory hallucination. When she opened her eyes again, she noticed that her outstretched hand was bloated. She looked down at her other hand to check to see if it looked the same.

It may have been bloated as well, but by the time that Kanae looked down at her other hand it had already started to shrink. Instead of shrinking down to their regular size, her hands had withered into the skeletal hands of an old krone with barely any life left in her. Kanae's whole body felt dry, like all of the fluids had somehow been drained out of it.

Just when she was worried that things couldn't get any worse, Kanae felt a wriggling in her core. Were those…maggots?

No, they couldn't be. Worms didn't feed on people who weren't alive, and Kanae was undeniably alive. She wouldn't be able to feel any of this if she was dead, after all. It must have just been another hallucination. In spite of the pain she had felt when she had broken through the window, Kanae still hadn't ruled out the possibility that this was all just a very lucid dream. There was no other explanation. Anything else would have been impossible.

Kanae touched her face, expecting to feel the same sagging wrinkles that she'd seen on her hands. She could feel them on her left cheek, but when she touched the right side of her face, all that she could feel were teeth. She started to gasp, but she stopped herself. If there was a hole in the side of her face, she didn't want to tear it open even further.

She gingerly started to feel around her cheek for the edges of the hole in her skin. Eventually, Kanae's fingers made contact with dry, paper-thin skin right below her cheekbone. She desperately wished that she had a mirror. She couldn't stand the thought of not knowing what her face would look like when someone came to rescue her. If it was too monstrous, Kanae's knight in shining armor change his mind and leave her to die alone in the attic.

She crawled over to the shattered window, hoping that she would be able to see her reflection in the panes that were still intact. Unfortunately, when she got there, she discovered that all of the glass had disappeared. Even the shards of glass that had fallen on the floor had disappeared. The metal bars that had once held the glass were the only thing that had remained of the window. It was nothing more than an empty skeleton.

Kanae wondered if that's how she would end up in a couple of minutes. At the rate that her body was decaying, it wouldn't be out of the question. There was something morbidly romantic to her about the idea of being found as a skeleton, tragically neglected. The only trace left behind of a woman who was no longer wanted. If she did have to die, Kanae wouldn't have minded a death like that. She would have liked to leave nothing left over but a reminder that they shouldn't have stopped paying attention to her. They should've cared when they had the chance.

Kanae had not yet allowed herself to cry. She had been trying to wear that same pretty, smiling face she had worn all her life. Even without anyone around to see her, she still wanted to look beautiful. Kanae refused to let herself be ugly, even in the attic. But now, that was all over.

_You should have taken your eyes off the stars_, Kanae thought. _You shouldn't have been so fixated on what was up there. You should have cared about what was in front of you. No, you should have cared about me. Not my mother. Not that girl who you moved into the Chairman's tower. And definitely not your sister. Oh, that sister of yours. Haven't you gotten tired of her yet? You've had your whole life with her, and less than a year with me. Isn't it time for you to grow up and come rescue me? _

Even with the corpse-like state that her body was in, Kanae could still feel hot tears welling up in her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop them from falling. She knew that if she cried in the attic, no one would laugh at her. There would be no danger in letting one more tiny imperfection show, especially now that she was something far from perfect. But she would know, and she had always been her harshest critic. Sometimes, Kanae felt like she was her only real critic.

She had been polite enough to impress people. But she had never shown enough ambition for people to expect anything but kindness from her. By never taking anything on, she had been able to become untouchable. She was a priceless work of art, not some fallible human girl. People wanted to see her, to take her from place to place, and to show her off. She could get whatever she wanted, and all that she ever needed to give anyone else in exchange was her presence.

Everyone loved Kanae immediately upon seeing her. She was well aware that meant she had an easy life. But it was so hard to be happy about that when it seemed like it was only the ones she genuinely tried to form a connection with who seemed to get bored with her. To most people, Kanae wasn't even interesting enough to be resented.

There was only one exception to that rule: Anthy Himemiya. Her fiancé's younger sister. She had never done anything outwardly mean to Kanae. Still, she had made it no secret that she was never going to welcome Kanae into her family. Sometimes she wondered if Anthy was the reason that Akio had pulled back. She hadn't thought much about Anthy at all recently. The two had barely interreacted.

Kanae couldn't remember resolving the issue with Anthy. Despite that, Kanae had a vague sense of closure about the whole situation. It would have been absurd to think that it was Anthy who had kidnapped her. But it would have been just as strange to wake up in an attic that was floating in outer space. But wasn't that what was happening to Kanae?

Kanae knew that blaming Anthy for her situation wasn't going to do anything to help her escape. But it made her feel better to have someone to blame, even if she didn't have any evidence to back up her suspicions. The girl had always been strange. Kanae didn't want to believe that one person could warp the fabric of reality like that, all on their own. But if there is anyone who could, it was Anthy Himemiya.


	6. Hell

Kanae knew that it was best for her own sanity not to question her situation. She knew that no amount of thinking would give her a clear explanation, but that hadn't stopped her from theorizing. The attic could have been some sort of virtual reality chamber. Kanae thought she'd seen something like that in a movie before.

She couldn't remember getting into a machine like that, though. Maybe she had been drugged. That would explain the way that she'd felt when she first woke up. Maybe that was the only thing that was happening. She had never been high before, but she knew that some drugs caused extreme hallucinations. Kanae hoped that the effects of whatever substance she had been given would wear off soon.

That theory was the first one she had come up with that she was able to test. If she waited long enough, and things went back to normal, then she had been drugged. It wasn't the most scientific way to figure things out, but it was better than nothing. So, she decided to sit and wait for the drugs to wear off. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before she got bored of that. Kanae had always been a patient girl, but the attic was testing her limits.

She decided to sing to herself, both to keep herself entertained and to hear the sound of a human voice. She had always enjoyed singing, but she wasn't particularly passionate about it. She had a soft, thin voice that nobody had ever considered impressive. Maybe if somebody would have complimented her on it, Kanae would've practiced singing more often.

Still, she didn't have anything else to do. She sang all of her go-to karaoke songs at least twice each, then the songs she half-remembered from the radio. Eventually, she felt a tickle in the back of her throat. She stopped because she didn't want to lose her voice if someone came to rescue her. She might have needed to tell him her personal information if she wanted to get home safely.

After she stopped singing, Kanae realized that she didn't have any other ideas to keep her entertained while she waited to be saved. If only she was more creative. She wished she was stronger as well. Then, she might have been able to break through the walls or the floorboards. If she was smarter, she would have been able to figure out what was going on. If she was braver, she might have been willing to risk more in her efforts to escape.

If she had been anyone other than Kanae Ohtori, this wouldn't have happened to her.

Kanae knew that wasn't true, but there was no one around to tell her that. It was hard to convince herself that she was still alive, much less that she deserved to be alive, without anyone around to confirm that it was true.

"This isn't my fault," Kanae whispered to herself.

She looked down at the floor. She tried to pretend that it was stained with raindrops, not the tears that were falling from her eyes. She tried to imagine that she was Cinderella, locked up while her stepsisters and stepmother desperately tried to impress the prince at the ball. Any moment now, her fairy godmother would appear and create a stunning white carriage out of a pumpkin.

But there wasn't a pumpkin in sight. She wasn't Cinderella. She didn't have stepsisters, a stepmother, or even a real prince. She had a fiancé and a mother, and she knew that they both loved and cared about her. But neither of them had come to rescue her.

"Bad things happen to good people," Kanae said.

_They happen to bad people too, _she thought to herself_. _

"They happen to everyone," she concluded, out loud. "But I'm a good person."

Was she? What gave her the right to decide that? She knew that she wasn't a bad person. She had never done anything to hurt someone else. At least, not on purpose. But she hadn't ever done anything heroic either. She had definitely been obedient, but had she ever truly been good?

As Kanae Ohtori sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, she realized something troubling. If she stayed in the attic for the rest of her natural life, the world would not be any worse or better off. Was she really that insignificant? Would her disappearance matter to anyone?

She was sure that her mother was probably worried about her. Akio might have even been worried too if he had noticed that she was gone. But both of them would surely be doing just fine without her.

She had friends, who were probably missing her, but no one she was particularly close with. Even though she was generally pleasant to be around, there were too many barriers to being Kanae's friend. She was the Chairman's daughter. She had a fiancé before she had even graduated. And now, she was trapped in an attic that was floating in outer space.

No matter how hard Kanae tried to distract herself from that fact, her mind always came back to it. No matter how hard she tried, nothing could distract her from it. She tried reflecting on the past, recounting the plot of her favorite TV show, meditating. None of it worked.

She was trapped. There was no ignoring it anymore. She had lost track of how much time had passed. Had it been minutes? Hours? She wasn't hungry or tired yet. So, it couldn't have been that long. Yet, it felt like she had been locked up in the attic for weeks.

"I'm sorry! I don't know what I did to deserve this, or if I even did anything at all, but I'm sorry. Someone, please help me. Anyone, please help me."

It was pointless, Kanae knew that. Who would come to help a bland, uninteresting girl who had never done anything that mattered in her life? The only thing she was good for was making someone more impressive in comparison to her. She was a bobblehead, destined to smile and nod on someone's desk for all of eternity. But people must have gotten bored with her because nobody even wanted her for that anymore. She had been locked in the attic to gather dust in obscurity.

"Is this…" Kanae didn't finish the thought.

Why should she have to? There was no one else around to hear it.


	7. Regard

Without warning, the trap door reappeared. This time, it was in a different place. Earlier, when that terrible replication of Kanae's mother had come to visit her, the door had appeared a few feet away from her. Now, it was right next to where she was sitting, and it was already opening. The attic didn't give her the space to get away quickly. Kanae wasn't going to be able to avoid whatever hideous illusion climbed up through it.

The first trace that Kanae saw of her daring rescuer was a hand. It was the same complexion as Akio's, but the fingers were far too dainty to be his.

"Kanae-san?" Anthy Himemiya poked her head up through the trap door and smiled demurely.

Kanae refused to entertain the notion that Anthy had come to save her. She still wasn't convinced that Anthy hadn't been the one to lock her up in the attic in the first place. In spite of her suspicions, Kanae decided it would be best to play nice. She didn't think there was a good reason to ever purposefully upset someone who had power over you. "Anthy, how did you get in here?" Kanae asked.

"This door," Anthy said.

"Yes, but how did you know that I was in here?" Kanae asked.

"Akio told me," Anthy said.

"Akio…knows I'm in here?"

Kanae couldn't believe it. The Akio she knew would never let something like this happen. Unless Anthy had put him under a spell. If she was capable of creating the space that Kanae was trapped in, she was certainly capable of that as well.

"He asked me to bring you this," Anthy said.

Suddenly, a pie tin covered with a red and white checkered cloth appeared in her hands. Not long ago, that would have terrified Kanae. But now, she just took a vicious pleasure in the fact that there was evidence for her theory. Anthy really was a witch!

"He wanted you to give me a pie?" Kanae asked, trying not to let her skepticism show.

Akio had found out that she was locked in a magical attic, and he had sent his sister to bring her a pie? It must have been a lie. He would never do something as cruel as that. This was all just part of Anthy's trick.

"Yes, an apple pie," Anthy said.

As Anthy removed the cloth from the top of the pie, Kanae's nostrils were overwhelmed with the scent of apples. The scent mingled with the smell of her own decaying body, making her feel nauseous. Kanae had expected the smell of food to make her uncomfortable, though.

She had been less prepared for the fear that came along with it. It was a hazy, delirious terror that made her vision swim. For a moment, the walls of the attic seemed to fade. Suddenly, she was back in the planetarium, sitting on that same couch she had set next to Akio on so many times before. Her tongue was burning with the tang of sour apples. But she hadn't taken a single bite of the pie yet.

Then, just as quickly as the delusional haze had set in, it disappeared. Anthy was sitting cross-legged in front of her, holding out a pie that smelled like apples and cinnamon in an attic that reeked of death.

"Did you bring any plates, or utensils?" Kanae asked.

She hoped that Anthy had not. If she had forgotten, she would have to leave the attic and get some. Then, Kanae could sneak out the door after her and return to Ohtori Academy. At least, she hoped that she could have done that. Kanae's vision of her mother had told her that the door was just another illusion. But that woman hadn't didn't seem to have had Kanae's best interests at heart. Kanae didn't think it was a good idea to take her advice about anything.

"Yes, I did," Anthy said.

She curled her fingers like she was grabbing an imaginary set of utensils out of the air. As she did that, a fork, knife, and a spoon appeared in her hand. Then, she pointed to the ground, and a plate appeared in front of Kanae. It was identical to the plates Kanae had used as a young girl, long before she'd known Anthy.

"I didn't bring anything for you to drink, though. I hope that's alright," Anthy said.

"Of course it is," Kanae said.

Kanae wasn't stupid. She knew that Anthy was being passive-aggressive. Anthy was purposefully denying her a drink. Anthy could have conjured up a glass of water just as easily as anything else that she had pulled out of thin air. If Anthy's intention was to make Kanae angry, Kanae wasn't going to let her see that it was working.

The only thing Kanae still felt unsure of at this point was whether this was the real Anthy or not. If it was really Akio's little sister, then the mystery was solved. She was a jealous witch who had locked Kanae up in a tower to keep her away from her older brother. If it was just another vision, like Kanae's mother had been, then Kanae still didn't know who was doing all of this to her, or why.

If she wanted to know whether this was the real Anthy or not, Kanae would need to see her eyes. It was how Kanae had found out that her mother was only an illusion. It wasn't a foolproof way of telling whether or not this Anthy was real, but it was the best that Kanae could come up with. Unfortunately, Anthy's glasses were shining so brightly that Kanae couldn't tell whether or not the eyes behind them were Anthy's or not.

"Thank you so much, Anthy," Kanae said. "It was so nice of you to bring me this pie, but I'm not really hungry right now. Could I save it for later?"

"If you'd like to," Anthy said.

She handed Kanae the pie, which intensified the sickly smell of the sugar-soaked apples.

"Could I cover it up again, so it doesn't get cold?" Kanae asked.

Immediately after she finished speaking, the checkered cloth disappeared from Anthy's lap.

"Oh no, I seem to have misplaced it! I'm very sorry," Anthy said.

"That's fine, I understand," Kanae said. "It's just, this smell is hard to take. It's not about your pie, it's the other smell. I don't have much of an appetite when the whole room smells like this."

"What other smell?" Anthy asked.

"You can't smell it? This whole attic smells like rotting flesh!" Kanae said.

"It does?"

Was it all just in her mind? Did she still look like her old self?

"No, it doesn't. I must just be imagining things," Kanae said. "I've been in here so long, I feel like I can barely tell what's real or not anymore. Do you by any chance have a mirror? I haven't seen myself in so long."

"Unfortunately, I don't," Anthy said.

"What about your glasses? They're shiny enough, they might work."

"Good idea."

Kanae had hoped that Anthy would take her glasses off to let her get a clearer glimpse of her eyes. Instead, Anthy leaned in closer to Kanae so she could see her reflection better.

While it was difficult for Kanae to make out exactly what she looked like, she could see Anthy's eyes clearly. They glowed cold and eerie, just like an alien's. It was difficult for Kanae not to shudder and look away. But she had to know if any of this was real. It was definitely Anthy's fault, but it could have all been an illusion. Kanae thought back to that lapse in reality she had experienced earlier, when Anthy had uncovered the pie. It may have been the first moment of truth that Kanae had seen in a long time.

Was Kanae just sitting dazed on the couch in the Chairman's tower?

The only way for her to know was to see herself in Anthy's glasses. If Anthy did control this strange place that seemed to exist between truth and illusions, then it was only through her eyes that Kanae would be able to see what she really looked like. Kanae put her hands on Anthy's shoulders to hold her steady. She wanted to be able to see herself clearly, which would be hard to do if Anthy was wriggling around. Unfortunately, Anthy's breathing was making her head move slightly. Kanae wouldn't have noticed it if they were having a regular conversation. But she needed Anthy to be perfectly still so that Kanae could know whether that was shadow on her cheek, or if her skin really had decomposed completely. Kanae slid her hands up onto Anthy's neck, in hopes that it would steady her.

"Doesn't this scare you?" Kanae asked. "I could kill you if I wanted to."

"Do you?" Anthy asked.

"And what if I did?" Kanae wondered.

"Look closer," Anthy said.

Suddenly, the attic filled with soft white moonlight, which made it easier for Kanae to see her own reflection in Anthy's glasses.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" Anthy said in a sing-song voice.

Just as she feared, her face had actually started to rot. Her gaunt, discolored skin was stretched tight across her bones. It was torn in some places, and she could see maggots and other insects places burrowing into the gaping hole in her cheek. The only parts of her face that were still perfectly intact were her eyes. They shined in her sunken eye sockets like emeralds buried in a hunk of rotting meat.

"What is this?" Kanae asked. "Am I in Hell? Did you kill me?"

"Not on my own," Anthy said, smiling sweetly.


	8. Stargazing

"Not on your own?" Kanae asked. "What do you mean that you didn't kill me on your own?"

"You know, Kanae," Anthy said. "You've known for a while now."

Kanae didn't know. She knew that Anthy had poisoned her father, and she was starting to think that Anthy had done the same thing to her. She had even been able to accept the fact that she was dead. She had accepted the fact that she was in Hell, or at least Purgatory. What more did Anthy want her to accept? If she was doomed to suffer for the rest of eternity, couldn't she at least have a clear explanation as to why?

"Why can't you just tell me what's going on, Anthy?" Kanae asked. "I've never been anything but kind to you."

"Is that so?" Anthy asked.

Images, maybe memories, flashed before her eyes at a rapid pace. Gleaming swords clanging up against each other. A black rose. Fire. Anthy in a red dress. A young boy with lavender hair. The corpse of a young boy that she had never known. A mysterious, ghostly man with light pink hair. Kanae couldn't piece together how they were connected. Or maybe she just didn't want to.

"Please just give me an explanation," Kanae said. "It doesn't need to be true. I just want this all to make sense."

"It doesn't need to be true?" Anthy asked.

Kanae shook her head. "You can lie to me if you want, but if you're keeping me here, I just want to know why."

"Look out the window," Anthy said.

"Why?" Kanae asked.

Was this yet another insult? Or was Anthy finally going to show her where she really was? Kanae couldn't be sure.

Kanae crawled over to the window and peered out through the shattered panes. She saw the same thing that she had seen before, the stars. They were beautiful, glittering against the mélange of indigo and violet that was the illusory night sky. But they didn't look any different than they had before.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Anthy whispered into Kanae's ear as she wrapped Kanae's scarf around her neck once more.

"They are, but why are you telling me this?" Kanae asked. "I wanted to know what you meant when you said that you didn't kill me on your own."

"You don't want to look at the stars with me, big sister?" Anthy asked.

Kanae couldn't take it anymore. She had put up with Anthy's subtle digs and passive-aggressive remarks for a while now. But for Anthy to finally call Kanae her big sister now, after everything she had done to her? After she had taken her away from the only person that even gave them that connection in the first place? That was too much for even Kanae to tolerate.

"Why can't you just act like a normal person?" Kanae asked. "If you did, I wouldn't have to do this!"

Kanae whirled around and ripped off her scarf. She pinned Anthy to the floor and wrapped the scarf around her neck. She was really going to do it this time. She was going to kill her. If Anthy was telling the truth, it wouldn't have even been a crime. After all, there was nothing wrong with killing your own murderer.

"I knew you wouldn't want to look at the real stars," Anthy croaked.

Her voice was strained by Kanae's efforts to choke her, but there was no fear in her eyes. They were still just as cold and foreboding as they'd always been. Kanae was determined to make her close them for good.

She had dreamt of it before, that was certain. But Kanae had always written it off as just that, a dream. It wasn't something she would ever act upon. It was just the sort of twisted fantasy that any sensible person would indulge in if they had to keep their true feelings hidden all the time. It wasn't as if she could choose to start dreaming about something else. So, she had never put very much stock into it.

But now, Anthy was under her control. She was holding perfectly still, not even making an effort to run away. The silly girl had been so confident that Kanae wouldn't have the nerve to do it. Kanae had been able to trick her into thinking that she was just a pleasant, empty-headed girl who never got angry. The sort of girl who couldn't have a single unpleasant thought, much less commit atrocious acts. But that wasn't the sort of girl that Kanae really was. At least, not deep down, it wasn't.

That had to be the real problem. Kanae wouldn't have been so preoccupied with trying to win Anthy over if Anthy would have admitted that she hated Kanae. If she let her jealousy show, instead of hiding it under false politeness, Kanae would have been able to get over it.

"Admit it!" Kanae said. "Admit that you've always been jealous of me! That you hate me for taking your brother away from you!"

Suddenly, Anthy disappeared. Had she done it? Had Kanae finally destroyed the witch? Or had Anthy fled the dangerous situation by disappearing?

Kanae held the scarf in her hands, uncomfortable to put it back on after what she might have just possibly done with it. It felt wrong to go back to wearing a scarf she might have used as a murder weapon like nothing had really happened. But she didn't want to look at it either.

As she moved the scarf to put it behind her so she wouldn't have to see it anymore, something small fell out onto the ground. It was a thin dark green cylinder. At first, Kanae couldn't tell what it was, but when she picked it up, she realized it was a cocoon. It made Kanae think of the butterfly that had appeared after the illusion of her mother had disappeared. She tried to crush in her hand, just like she had done with the butterfly, but the cocoon was hard as stone.

The harder she pressed down on it, the more that her memories started coming back to her. She saw their faces again. The ghostly man and the boy with the lavender hair.

"It wasn't me. I never wanted to kill her," Kanae's voice was shaking. "It was that person, that man. What was his name? Mikage?"

The attic didn't answer.

"I don't even know who he was. But I remember him. And I remember the boy with the black rose."


	9. Cid

For the first time since she had stepped out of that arena, Kanae could remember everything. She didn't know why those memories had come back to her now. All she knew was that the harder she pressed down on the cocoon in her hands, the more she could remember. She had suspected Anthy of poisoning her father, so she had gone to the Mikage Seminar in hopes of feeling better about it. But the therapy session hadn't made her feel any better. It had only led her to duel that girl, Utena Tenjou, so that she could kill Anthy Himemiya.

But there were still so many things that didn't add up. Why had that man, Souji Mikage, wanted her to kill Anthy? Who was that boy who had been with him? Why did he want Anthy Himemiya dead? He had called her the Rose Bride. What did that mean? And why had Utena Tenjou been protecting her? Why had Akio moved her into the Chairman's tower later.

There was only one thing that was still on her mind. Why had Anthy done any of it? Why had she poisoned Kanae's father? Why had she killed Kanae? And how? And what did she mean when she said that she hadn't done it "on her own?" Kanae pressed down on the cocoon as hard as she possibly could, in hopes that it would finally tell her. But this time, instead of showing her a flash of memory, she felt something wriggling in her hands.

She opened her palms to see a green and black striped caterpillar. It wriggled around in her fingers, searching blindly for food. She pressed down on it gently with her fingers, wondering if it would trigger another flashback. Nothing happened, so she tried pressing down harder. It wriggled in pain, but Kanae didn't remember anything new. She let the little creature crawl around in her hands for a while. She had never liked insects of any sort, but something was comforting about being with a living creature that wasn't going to hurt her. After having to talk to Anthy and that horrid illusion of her mother, it was nice to be visited by something that didn't want to hurt her.

"Hello there, I'm Kanae," she said quietly to the caterpillar.

Suddenly, the sound of the trap door being flung open filled the room. It hadn't ever disappeared after Anthy left, had it?

"Have you already forgotten me, my love?"

It was Akio's voice. Kanae couldn't believe it. Had he finally come to rescue her?

"Akio? Is that you?"

He didn't need to answer as he hoisted himself up through the trap door. It was undeniably him. At first, she thought that he was just another illusion because he was wearing a strange, fairytale prince costume complete with coattails and epaulets. But she could tell from looking in his eyes that it was him.

As he hoisted himself through the trap door, the room seemed to fill with light. His presence seemed to change the whole attic. Maybe it was wrong to call it an attic at all, with the way it had changed. She was sitting in a spacious room with white marble floors, Greco-Roman pillars, and domed ceilings. There were indoor fountains and heavy, ornate furniture made out of gold and hardwood. Small potted plants dotted the walls. The whole room seemed to have grown. The only thing that remained the same was the stars, which still glittered outside the windows.

Kanae tossed the caterpillar onto the floor and rose to her feet. It felt so good to finally be able to stand after being curled up in a ball for so long. After sitting in the dark for so long, she would have been thankful to run regardless. But being able to run into the arms of the man that she loved was nothing sort of ecstasy inducing. She practically threw herself at Akio, and he caught her.

There was no time for words. She reached for his face and kissed him. His kiss was just as gentle as it always had been. Kanae usually allowed him to set the pace and take the lead, but she was so desperate for human affection that she couldn't hold herself back. After only a few seconds of her fiancé's soft kisses, she bit down hard on his lip, which caused him to pull back.

For a moment, Kanae was terrified. What if she still looked like that hideous corpse she had seen reflected in Anthy's glasses? What if Akio had only kissed her to be polite. He must have been disgusted now, but no…He was smiling. There was humor in his cool green eyes that she wouldn't have expected to see from someone who had just kissed a corpse.

"Have you finally come to rescue me?" Kanae asked.

"No, I haven't" he still smiled as he said it.

Kanae felt all of the strength drain from her body. This couldn't be her Akio. He may have had the same eyes, but this was not her fiancé. He may not have been particularly attentive. But surely he wouldn't have come to torment her like this.

_"I come to bid you in this place, before the final blow, adieu," _Akio said.

"What do you mean?" Kanae said.

"Well, surely you'll want to kill me," Akio said.

"Why would I want to do that?" Kanae asked. "Is it because of how I look? Because I know it's not exactly the way you remember me, but I'm sure that there's a way to fix it."

"I don't know what you mean," Akio said. "You look lovely."

"Really?" Kanae asked.

"Of course, go look in the water of that fountain over there," Akio instructed.

Kanae wasn't sure which of the fountains in the spacious room he had been referring too, so she knelt next to the closest one. It was nothing like struggling to make out her reflection in Anthy's glasses. The moment she laid eyes on the water, she could see that her skin was soft, fair, and most importantly of all, completely intact. She touched her hand to her cheek, just to make sure the hole was gone. It was!

She was even more beautiful than she had been before. Her hair was somehow longer, and there was a simple golden tiara perched atop her head. A purple dress with red trim and black ruffles underneath it had replaced her clothes. It looked almost like the red dress that Anthy had worn in her memories, but this dress much prettier. It might have been the same design, but the color scheme of that last dress hadn't been anywhere near as appealing as this dress' was.

"Do you like it, my princess?" Akio asked her.

"Of course, I do!" Kanae said.

"Then why don't you come here, Kanae?" Akio asked. "I can take you far away from this place."

"Now?" Kanae asked. "Couldn't we stay here together, just the two of us, a moment longer?"

She watched as a stray leaf from one of the nearby potted plants floated across the surface of the water, scattering her reflection. The ripples distorted her face, making it look similar to the that way it had when she had looked at her reflection in Anthy's glasses. But Kanae quickly plucked the leaf out of the water and crumpled it up in her hand. She wasn't going to let anything distract her from this moment.


	10. Interpretation

The wedding was going to be beautiful. Of course, Kanae wouldn't allow for anything else. She wished that it could have been possible to have it here, in this beautiful palace that wouldn't have been out of place on the Spanish Riviera. But she couldn't be sure if it actually existed or not, and Kanae needed their wedding to be real. Still, something was tempting about staying in this fantasy for the rest of her life.

Currently, the details of her very existence were contradictory, but Kanae didn't care. If she could keep this gorgeous dress and stay in this castle with Akio for the rest of her life, she would be happy. In this world, Anthy was gone for good. There was nothing to come between the two of them anymore. The two of them could live here in this place, happily ever after, until the end of the world.

She was going to have everything she ever dreamed of. And then she woke up. This time, there was no mysterious attic, no splitting headache, and no taste of apples. She was wearing the same orange dress and white scarf she had been when she first woke up in the attic. She had a little bit of a sore back from falling asleep on the couch in the Chairman's office, but that was to be expected.

She sat up and saw that Akio, reading a book. He was sprawled out on the couch across from the one that she had fallen asleep on. From what Kanae could see on the cover, it was in French. Kanae didn't even know that Akio spoke French. Typically, she would have been hurt to discover that her fiancé had hidden another part of himself from her. But she had finally returned to the Ohtori Academy that she knew and loved. More importantly, Akio was still there with her. How could she possibly be angry?

"Am I…still alive?" Kanae asked.

She had been convinced that she was dead. That she was in hell. But it had all just been a dream. A long, painfully vivid nightmare. One that she hadn't been able to wake up from, no matter how hard she tried. But a nightmare, all the same.

"You could say that," Akio said, without bothering to look up from his book.

That was the man she knew. He was cool and philosophical, but aloof and disinterested. He was always teasing the possibility of an intellectual conversation but kept the discussion confined behind those calculating green eyes.

"That was a silly question," Kanae said. "Of course I'm alive."

Akio laughed quietly to himself at this.

"How long was I asleep for?" Kanae asked.

"A while," Akio said.

"Sorry, am I distracting you from your reading?" Kanae asked.

"It's fine, I was just passing the time while I waited for you to wake up. Or should I say come back to life?" he teased.

Kanae laughed uneasily.

"What book is it? It looks like it's in French," Kanae said. "I didn't know you knew any other languages."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Kanae," Akio said. "But this is an old play called _Le Cid._ It was written by a man named Pierre Corneille and first performed in the 1630's."

"Wow, that is old," Kanae said. "Does it still make sense today? Whenever I have to read old stuff like that for school I can never relate to it."

"I'd say that it's still relevant today," Akio said. "It's about a young man who kills his lover's father for the sake of his family, right before the two were about to get married."

"Oh," Kanae said.

She didn't think that seemed particularly relevant to either of their lives. She figured that Akio would eventually get to explaining how it was.

"The ordeal nearly destroys their relationship, but everything turns out fine in the end, more or less. The lovers get their happy ending. It may be old, but it's very exciting. There's even a duel, offstage of course. That's simply how things were done in the 17th century. Well, in France at least," Akio said.

"You say that like you were there," Kanae laughed.

"How do you know that I wasn't?" Akio teased. "In all seriousness, the prose is truly beautiful. Just listen to this line: _I come to bid you in this place, before the final blow, adieu_."

His words made Kanae shiver, like ice water being poured down her back.

"That's funny," Kanae said. "You said that to me in the dream that I just had."

"Oh really? What a strange coincidence."

"What about those?" Kanae asked. She pointed to the stack of books that were piled up next to Akio's couch. "Did you read them all while I was asleep?"

"Ah yes, those. _Phèdre _by Jean Racine. Another old, French play. The tragic story of a woman who falls in love with her stepson, which causes her family to fall into disarray. I doubt you'd like it. And _Huis Clos_, also known as _No Exit_. Also French, but nowhere near as old. Three people trapped in Hell together desperately seek validation from each other. Of course, Hell in this play takes the form of a tastelessly decorated room without any mirrors. . By the end, none of them are able to leave the room because they have all become caught up in trying to prove themselves in the eyes of another. And, finally, _Jane Eyre_. This one's in English, in case you couldn't tell. A young woman falls in love with a brooding older man, only to discover that he has been keeping his first wife locked up in an attic."

"An attic?" Kanae asked.

This all seemed uncomfortably close to what Kanae had experienced in her dream. She remembered that the illusion of her mother had claimed to be in love with Akio, which had made Kanae feel like her entire world had been falling apart. And she could still remember the desperation with which she had looked at her own reflection in Anthy's glasses, desperate for validation that she was still alive. Anthy had told Kanae that she was dead, which had made Kanae feel sure that she was in Hell. And then, Akio had quoted that play about the man who killed his lover's father. And of course, there was the attic.

But what did it all mean?

Nothing. It didn't mean anything at all. It was all just a strange coincidence, just like Akio had said.

But Kanae couldn't believe that, not anymore. Not after everything she had just experienced. She was done sitting back and accepting confusing explanations that canceled each other out. She was going to figure out what had happened, even if it really did kill her.


	11. Narratives

"You sure did a lot of reading," Kanae said. "How long was I asleep for?"  
She wasn't going to let Akio evade answering her questions any longer.

"A while," Akio said. "You slept for days without waking up to eat or to drink. It was almost as if you had fallen under some sort of spell, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. I was very concerned for you."

"Did you call the doctor?" Kanae asked.

"Yes, he came by and said you were fine. Even he wasn't able to come up with an explanation for it."

"How did my mother react?" Kanae asked.

"She was concerned as well, in her own way."  
"That sounds like her. What about your sister."

Akio was silent.

"What is it?" Kanae asked, sounding more frantic than she would have liked.

She couldn't have really killed Anthy. That part, surely must have only been a dream.

"There's no need to sound so worried. She merely transferred schools," Akio said. "Still, she did it without warning. And with you being asleep for so long, I haven't had anyone else aside from your mother to keep me company. Don't get me wrong, she's fine woman, but it's nice someone a bit closer to my own age to talk to now."

"Oh, my mother kept you company?" Kanae asked.

"Yes, why do you sound so critical of that?" Akio asked.

"What? You haven't noticed the way she looks at you?" Kanae said. "I think you're well aware of it, judging from your reading list?"

"Are you implying that your mother is in love with me?" Akio asked.

"Yes," Kanae said. She couldn't believe that she had finally said it out loud.

"And do you think that I return her affections?" Akio asked.

"I'd like to think you don't!" Kanae said.

"That wasn't a no," Akio said.

"And how does that make you feel? Anything?" Kanae asked.

Akio shrugged. "Any other accusations you'd like to make about me, or any of our other family members?"

"Well, if we're talking about this, then yes. Your sister. I know that she's gone now, and I know that's probably hard for you. But I don't think this could be good for us. That girl always wanted to get between the you and I, and you never did anything to stop her."

"Well, she's gone now. Does that make you happy?"

"In all honesty? Yes, it does. Unless you're going to spend the rest of our lives together moping about how she transferred schools."

"While I don't intend to do that, I will admit that the two of us are in a difficult predicament, with regards to where our interests lie. Hell is other people, after all."

He tilted his head in the direction of the stack of books on the floor by his couch.

"What does that even mean, Akio? Stop being cryptic and just talk to me! We're a partnership! This relationship isn't just me! You have an emotional stake in all of this too!"

"Do I?" Akio asked.

Kanae made a connection that she hadn't yet. If Akio's summary of the story was to believed, it hadn't been Jane Eyre who had locked that woman in the attic. It had been the "brooding, older man" she had fallen in love with. Kanae wasn't sure that she liked what Akio's choice to highlight that part of the story specifically said about the nature of her relationship with him. If her nightmare had actually been real, was he the one to blame for it all?

"I dreamt that I was locked in an attic, but it didn't feel like a dream. My mother came in and told me she was in love with you. Then, your sister came in told me that she had killed me, but she hadn't done it alone. Then, you arrived and said that line from that play, about the man who killed his lover's father. Then, when I wake up, you're sitting across from me on the couch with a pile of books that are about all of the same things that my dream was."

"Yes, and what do you think the significance of all that is?" Akio said.

"You're not my literature teacher!" Kanae groaned. "But I'm starting to think that you are my mother's lover. That she chose you to be my fiancé so that you two could spend more time together. You loved her long before you knew me. Maybe even before I was born. I have no idea how old you are, or what you're truly capable of. But I don't think you're human. And I don't think that your sister is human either. I think you two poisoned my father, and then killed me when I started to get suspicious of Anthy. And now you've turned me into some sort of ghost, or trapped me in some sort of never ending illusion!"

"You're very close," Akio said. "You're overestimating the strength of the emotional connection between your mother and I. She may love me, but I highly doubt it. I, on the other hand, can say with complete certainty that I've never felt that way about her. You're correct about Anthy and I killing you, but neither of us poisoned your father. I had your mother do that for us. I didn't think he was worth getting our hands dirty over. Especially when I could get so much pleasure out of turning your mother against him. Yet, in spite of your inability to figure any of that out, you have a surprisingly clear grasp on the reality, or more accurately, the unreality of your current situation. Everyone else that I've brought back like this never bothered to question it. Anthy and I usually gave them false memories, or a mission to keep them distracted from thinking about how and why they still existed in Ohtori Academy, in spite of everything that had happened to them in the past."

"You've done this before?" Kanae asked.

"Oh yes, countless times," Akio said. "The last one served us well, do you remember meeting him?"

"Are you talking about Souji Mikage?" Kanae asked.

"Yes, very good. You're catching on quickly. I'm glad to see that most of your ignorance seems to have been willful, instead of genuine obliviousness. I appreciate that sort of perceptiveness."


	12. Matrimony

"Why do you keep doing this? Killing people and bringing them back to life?" Kanae asked. "What do you serve to gain from it?"

"Oh no, we didn't kill Souji Mikage. He was an arsonist," Akio said, as if it that explained anything.

"Did he die in the fire that he started?" Kanae asked.

"If I'm being completely honest, I don't really remember," Akio said. "Anthy always got more attached to our pawns than I did, in spite of her best efforts. That may just be part of being the Rose Bride. I had always assumed that establishing some sort of emotional attachment to the duelists would be unavoidable for someone who had to know them as intimately as she did. It was part of why I always tried to select duelists that she wouldn't have trouble resenting. But I'm probably overwhelming you with all of this information, aren't I?"

He was, but Kanae wasn't willing to admit it. This was the most open that her fiancé had ever been with her, and she wasn't going to let him know she was having a hard time following everything he was saying. That was the most pathetic thing of all, finding out the truth about Akio, she still wanted his approval. She wanted him stop looking down on her and start treating her with respect, even though Kanae wasn't sure that he had any respect left for him. Finding out that he was far from the prince he had promised her that he would be only made Kanae want him to be that prince even more.

"No, I understand you," Kanae said.

"Oh, do you?" he sounded almost offended by that statement.

Did he really think that just because he had magical powers he was beyond comprehension? He obviously didn't have enough power to do whatever he wanted. Otherwise, he wouldn't have needed to keep his sister around at all. In fact, Kanae was pretty sure that the only reason she had left the attic at all is because he didn't have the power to keep the illusion up for very long after Anthy left. Either that, or he had found another use for Kanae now that Anthy was gone.

"I almost do," Kanae said. "There's one thing that I still don't get, though. If you went through all the trouble of killing me, why did bring me back to life? Be honest."

"Well, now that you've asked me to be honest, I certainly will," Akio grinned.

Kanae hated the way his arrogant smile made her cheeks flush. Even now, after knowing he had literally taken part in killing her, she still found herself being overwhelmed by his intelligence and charisma.

"Anthy and I were originally intending to use you the same way that we had used Mikage, as an opponent for the champion in the next duel cycle. Up until the end, neither of us were completely sure how Utena Tenjou was going to turn out for us. She was always unpredictable like that, so we wanted to be prepared. However, after Anthy left me behind, I suddenly found myself in need of a new Rose Bride. And I figured, who better than my actual fiancée? It was difficult bringing you back without Anthy's help, but I'm far from useless without her. The magic she had didn't just come from herself. Part of it came from this place, and this place has been under my control for longer than it's even existed."

Kanae could tell that he was trying to keep her confused with impossible sounding statements. But for once in her life, she wasn't going to take the bait. Kanae was finished letting him drag this conversation in whatever direction he desired.

"So you regret killing me?" Kanae asked.

"Of course I do, my dear Kanae," Akio said. "I never wanted to kill you in the first place. Anthy demanded it, and I had to do what she said. She was family."

"And what if she comes back and wants to be the Rose Bride again? What happens to me then?" Kanae asked.

"I doubt that's going to happen any time soon, but if it does, I don't see why I couldn't keep you both around," Akio said. "I'm sure that Anthy wouldn't mind, as long as you were fine with it."

"I'd rather it just be the two of us," Kanae said. "You shouldn't be calling your sister your bride like that. It's not right. Even if being the Rose Bride doesn't have anything to do with being married, it makes it sound like you two…"

Kanae trailed off as Akio broke out into a fit of laughter. It was the only time in her life that she'd seen him unable to control his own emotions.

"Wait, you didn't figure that one out? You figured everything about us out except for possibly the most obvious thing?" Akio asked.

"What do you mean?" Kanae asked.

"Were we better at hiding it than I thought? Because I always thought that I was dangerously obvious about it all. She was much better at keeping it a secret, when she wasn't purposefully making snide remarks about it, just to get under my skin, of course," Akio said.

"I don't understand," Kanae said, even though she had a feeling that she did.

"Don't you think that Saturday night is an awfully strange time for a sister to come and visit her brother? Wouldn't it make more sense for Anthy to have come to visit me during the day, when we could have done something together out in public?" Akio asked. "Unless of course, we had something to hide."

"You can stop talking now," Kanae said. "I know what you're trying to say."

"Does it disgust you, Kanae? The things that we did on the very couch you're sitting on?" Akio asked.

"Here?! Why here!?" Kanae asked.

"For all the time that I've spent in this planetarium, it wasn't the stars that gave me pleasure," Akio said.

"How could you? With your own sister?" Kanae asked.

"We had a sort of bond most people could never hope to understand. But she's gone now, so it doesn't matter anymore. I'm looking to start over, with you, Kanae," Akio said.

"I don't want to be with you, not after all this!" Kanae said.

"We'll see about that, now won't we?" Akio asked.

He stood up, walked over to the projector, and turned it on. However, instead of the stars she had gotten so used to seeing, after her time in the attic, she saw what looked like a massive swarm of silver insects circling high above her head. No, they weren't insects at all, and they were all flying directly towards her.

Kanae looked down, to notice she was wearing the same purple and black dress she'd been wearing at the end of her dream, the one that looked just like Anthy's. But this time, it didn't make her feel beautiful at all. Akio was standing on the other side of the room, dressed as a prince again.

"AKIO!" Kanae cried out.

"Don't worry about me," he reassured his fiancé. "I'm not going to get hurt."


	13. Phoenix

Kanae woke up on the couch in the Chairman's office, strewn out across Akio's lap like a blanket. She was wearing her regular clothes, but her body was still in immense pain. There was no sign that she had just been impaled by flying swords. "Does it hurt?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine," she said.

It was a lie. Even though she could still feel each and every one of those swords digging into her body, she didn't want to mention it. It was a lie. Even though Kanae could still feel all the swords digging into her, she didn't want to say anything about it. That would just be one more thing for Akio to use against her. She didn't know whether this was reality or another dream. All that she knew was that she couldn't trust Akio. Either he was responsible for all of this, or he would tell her she was insane for thinking it all up. He might have even tried to do both, just to manipulate her.

"Good," Akio said.

He put one hand on the back of her neck and tilted her into an upright position. Then, he placed his other hand onto her chest. Kanae wasn't sure what he was trying to do, but there was nothing that could have prepared her for what happened next. She felt her chest cavity pulsate with energy when she should have been feeling her own heartbeat. It felt like the swords that she was carrying in her body were shifting, so one of them could escape into the world.

The hilt of the sword lethargically forced itself up through her chest, like an animal digging out of its burrow after hibernating all winter. There was no blood, just twinkling lights. But that didn't do anything to minimize the pain. Akio held onto the hilt, but he didn't pull on it until it was completely free from her body. Once he did, the pain intensified as the blade slid through Kanae's skin. But, it was all over so quickly enough.

"You'll get better at that with time," Akio said, standing up to inspect the sword.

It looked extremely similar to the one that Kanae had used when she dueled against Utena Tenjou. It had angular guard and white, lily-shaped pommel on the end. However, instead of being gold like it had been before, the hilt of the sword was black.

"I'll get better?" Kanae asked.

She hadn't done anything at all. Akio had pulled the sword out of her entirely on his own, without even asking for her permission first.

"I didn't do anything," Kanae said.

"Maybe that was the problem," Akio said.

"You know, I think that you might just be right about that Akio," Kanae said.

"It looks like you're already improving to me," Akio said.

"Oh, you weren't talking about what you just did with the sword, were you?" Kanae asked.

She was putting in some effort to hide her frustration, but not as much as she usually did when she was talking to her fiancé.

"I was, in part," Akio began,. "You see, now that you're the Rose Bride-"

"What does that mean exactly?" Kanae interrupted. "Are we married now in your eyes? Because I don't care what you just did with that sword. I want to have a wedding."

Kanae could tell if Akio was angry with her or just confused. He was always so hard to read.

"I don't know what you're talking about Kanae. We got married last week," Akio said. "I can show you some of the pictures."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of polaroid photographs. Kanae's dress was a ball gown with lace sleeves. There was an archway covered in oversized white roses. Akio looked devilishly handsome in his tuxedo. They had arrived at the ceremony in a horse-drawn carriage. It was everything that Kanae had ever wanted. No, somehow, it was even more picturesque than that. But there was one little detail that made Kanae sure that none of it was real.

"Where's your sister?" Kanae asked.

"You didn't want her there," Akio said.

"I don't remember saying that," Kanae said. "But I do remember everything you did to me. Some of it with her, but some of it on your own as well."

Akio pushed Kanae off of his lap and got up off the couch.

"If you want to leave, do it now. I don't care," Akio said.

He pointed at the door, but Kanae stayed sitting down.

"I know you don't. You never have," Kanae said. "But I care. I always did. And now, you finally want me. But I don't want you."

"Then leave. I'm telling you to leave," Akio said.

"You can't do that Akio. This tower is mine. It belongs to my family. And while I know that I can't do anything to force you out of it, you can't do anything to force me out of it either. That's why you chose me for this role. Not some other ghost from your past. You needed me to keep yourself tethered to this place. Without me, you can't be Akio Ohtori. At least, not without your sister around you can't. Isn't that right?"

Akio didn't answer. Kanae wasn't sure if she liked that or not. Admittedly, she enjoyed being the one who got to do all of the talking for a change. But she wasn't sure if she wanted to keep that up for the rest of her existence. Eventually, she would get bored, or she would run out of things to say. She decided to wait until Akio spoke first.

"So if you're not going to leave, what are you going to do?" Akio asked.

Kanae Ohtori was going to finally fight back against the man who had turned her into the shadow of a person that she currently was. Kanae had freed her mind from that attic. But she knew that the world she existed in was still confining her, just like that illusion had. She felt in every tiny movement, in the way that the swords sunk deeper into her nerves every time she shifted her weight.

Kanae was in far too much pain to kill Akio herself, but she was going to finish the job she started when she had first stepped into the dueling arena. Kanae was going to get her revenge. She knew that if she searched hard enough, she could find someone that she could convince to do her bidding. After all, Ohtori Academy was full of people like that. People longing to be seen, to be heard, to be special.

For years, maybe even centuries, Akio and Anthy had pitted them against each other as the End of the World and the Rose Bride. But now, Anthy was gone. Despite what Akio wanted Kanae to be, there was no more Rose Bride. When Anthy left the school, she had burned that image of the delicate red flower, leaving only a charred husk in its place.

Kanae was the black rose bride, somehow simultaneously part of the masses and the elite. She was going to use that power to bring Akio and the system that enabled him down, even if it brought her down along with him. She had nothing to lose. She was pretty sure that she was dead, after all. Yet, she had never felt more alive.

"I'm going to do exactly what I always promised you I would, Akio," Kanae said. "I'm going to be the wife that you truly deserve."

"Best of luck with that, my bride."

Kanae could tell if he had sensed the malice in her voice or not. His tone of voice was devoid of any emotion, but his words made Kanae suspicious. If he hadn't been able to tell that she was subtly threatening him, he probably wouldn't have responded like that.

However, there was no way for Kanae to ask him about any of that. Immediately after he finished speaking, he turned his back on Kanae and walked out the door. But, for the first time in her whole life, Kanae was happy to see him go.


End file.
